Composer: Giacomo Puccini
Libretto: Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
Conductor: Iwan Davies
Director: Christopher Moon-Little after James Conway
La Boheme – that’s the one where Mimi dies of TB – right? Well, yes, but that’s only half the story. The first two acts (of four) are huge fun relieved only by 15 minutes of key-searching and candles being blown out – and even here there’s a knowing comedy behind the romantic exchanges. The opening horseplay between Marcello, Rodolfo, Colline and Schaunard is wonderfully infectious before, after the Mimi interlude, the Café Momus scene is a riot of comedy.
It’s only after the interval that things darken in that gloriously menacing early-morning scene at the City gates and, even in Act 4, fun keeps breaking out with the four Bohemians before Musetta brings the news that the dying Mimi is on her way to the apartment.
The point about English Touring Opera’s production is that it manages the serious stuff much better than the comic. It leaves us with the traditional “not a dry eye in the house”, Mimi dying to sumptuous music, then the brief speech from Rodolfo and the final agonised scream of loss. It usually gets you and director Christopher Moon-Little and conductor Iwan Davies press all the right buttons.
At the interval it’s a bit less convincing. Maybe the set for Act 1 is not the most helpful and certainly Luciano Botelho experienced early vocal troubles that by and large cleared later. Given his impressive CV, perhaps we ought to assume a bad night at the office. Café Momus is entertaining – how can it not be? – but the Bohemians lined up at the bar is not the best way to convey life and movement.
This is a production that takes life in Act 3. Botelho’s Italianate tenor begins to plumb the layers of grief and suffering between him and Mimi, their duet becomes a quartet as Marcello and Musetta burst out of the bar in a flaming row. This is another of the great scene endings and, as at the final curtain, Moon-Little and Davies handle it perfectly.
One thing that is certain is that Francesca Chiejina is superb as Mimi. Avoiding unnecessary drama, she relies upon her voice to convey her emotions, soaring magnificently, then quietening to affecting pianissimo. She gets first-class support: Michel de Souza rock-solid as Marcello, Trevor Eliot Bowes and Themba Mvula vocally admirable as Colline and Schaunard, Bowes delivering a most resonant farewell to his coat. Jenny Stafford seems a little stiff as Musetta, even when given some outre business in Act 2, but she delivers with conviction what’s required, be it Waltz Song, fierce duet or compassionate companion.
Florence de Mare and Neil Irish’s designs don’t really add a lot except in Act 2 where the large screen enlarges the Café Momus by its reflections of the singers.
Touring nationwide
